


In Rememberance

by avulle



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 22:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4683911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avulle/pseuds/avulle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pearl visits Rose one last time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Rememberance

 A slender woman stands before a grave, hands laced tightly before her.

“You would like it here,” she says.

She shuffles her feet.

“Or at least, I’d like to think so.”

She glances around her, pale blue eyes catching briefly on the individual tombstones surrounding her.

“It’s so much better than it used to be.”

She shuffles her feet again, taking half a step forward before taking half a step back.

“It’s not perfect, of course.”

The cellophane wrapping around the rose’s held to her chest crinkle as she pulls her hands closer to her.

“But it’s better.”

She looks around again before slowly crouching down, and lowering the rose’s on the grave.

“Roses,” she says, coughing out a weak laugh. “Unimaginative, I know.”

After another moment’s hesitation, she lays them on the grave.

“I can’t look at them without thinking of you.”

She rubs her now empty hands together, her gaze still looking anywhere but at the words of the tombstone before her.

“I—uh—” she shakes her head, drops her gaze to the roses, “I haven’t found anyone else.”

Another glance around her, and the woman lowers herself to her knees.

She grimaces as the cold wet of the grass seeps through her leggings, but she doesn’t get back up.

“I know you’d be disappointed in me,” she continues, turning her gaze to her hands. “But I—”

She swallows.

“I can’t find anyone like you.”

She grimaces, and chances a glance at the tombstone before her.

“Or—” she glances away, “anyone as good as you.”

She laces her fingers tightly together in her lap, and clenches her eyelids together.

“I’m sorry I don’t come more often,” she whispers through gritted teeth.

“I—” she coughs out a not-quite-sob “I can’t.”

She gulps down a deep breath of air.

“It’s too—”

She chokes off, turning her face away.

After several long seconds, she raises a hand to her eyes, and turns back to the grave.

She finally allows her gaze to rest solidly on the tombstone.

_Rose Quartz Universe_

_Loving Wife and Mother_.

“Steven’s doing well,” the woman finally says, coughing to clear her throat.

_1918 - 1932_

“Greg, too.”

She itches her fingers across each other in her lap.

“All things considered.”

She looks down at her flowers, reaching half-towards them before drawing her hand back.

“They’re not like me,” she says, hand dropping heavily into the grass between her knees. “But they’re something like it.”

She plucks a strand of grass from the ground before her, and rolls it absently between her fingers.

“Too much time around me, I guess.”

She looks back up at the tombstone, and allows the strand of grass fall back to the earth between her knees.

“You’d be so proud of him, Rose,” she says. “He’s so much like you.”

She hangs her head, and clenches her eyes closed.

“God, he’s so much like you.”

She chokes out another breath.

“His hair’s just like yours.”

She gulps another breath in.

“Wears it just like—”

She makes a choked noise, and looks away.

“Wears it just like you used to.”

She gulps down a breath, and blinks her eyes before turning back to the tombstone.

“He found someone—” she says, brushing absently at her skirt.

“God, a decade ago, now.”

She coughs, and blinks up at the sky.

“You’d like her. She’s good for him.”

She glances away, eyes falling to a figure on the far side of the cemetery.

“Greg did too, eventually.”

The woman’s eyes follow the figure as it makes its way through the cemetery.

“I know you’d be happy for him—” she says, coughing out a weak laugh.

“And she’s—”

The woman snorts.

“Well, she’s not you.”

The figure kneels before a grave across the cemetery and the woman returns her gaze to the grave and smiles weakly.

“But—” she half-shrugs, “But she loves him.”

The woman knots her hands together in her lap, and shakes her head helplessly.

“It’s just me, now—”

Tears begin leak out of the corner of her eyes, but this time, she doesn’t turn her gaze away.

“Who can’t seem to move on.”

She coughs out a sob, and turns her gaze up to the gray sky above her.

“I need to go, soon,” she says to the sky.

“I have a plane to catch.”

Light rain drops begin to fall from the sky, and the woman’s tears are masked by the light drizzle.

“I won’t be back—”

She shakes her head.

“Not for a long time.”

She drops her head back to face the gravestone.

“I still miss you,” she says. “I wish you were here.”

She struggles to her feet, and stares down at the tombstone.

“I’ll try and move on,” she says, leaning over to brush her hand along the rough surface of its top edge.

“But—”

She swallows, and turns fully away.

“I’ve met some people,” she says to the empty air, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

“And they’re—”

She shakes her head at the empty air before her.

“They’re good to me.”

She leans down, and plucks a purse from the grass.

“But Rose—”

She shoulders her purse.

“But Rose, I don’t know—”

She turns to give the tombstone one last glance.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be over you.”

She shifts her purse against her shoulder.

“But they want to help me try.”

She sniffs one last time.

“And I want to let them.”

The woman hesitates before taking a step forward and leaning over the tombstone.

She presses a dry kiss to the top of it.

“I hope you’re happy, wherever you are.”

She gives the tombstone one last caress before straightening up again.

“And I want you to know that I’ll never stop loving you.”

The woman shuffles her feet—taking a half-step forward before taking a half-step back.

“Goodbye, Rose,” she finally says.

“I’ll always be your Pearl.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by the trailer to Age of Adaline, but actually has very little in common with it. The only commonality is that Pearl had an accident in her youth, and she doesn't age.


End file.
